I’m sitting in Fubar’s VIP lounge across from the Dreamboys, a group of male strippers, who only moments ago were fully in the nude. Thankfully, for the sake of being able to make eye contact, they are now dressed.
Before they graced Fubar’s stage I was under the impression that tear-away trousers were a thing of fiction.
After watching them perform, I can report that this is in fact not the case.
Undone belt buckles, lap dances and grinding brought the Magic Mike fantasy of the Dreamboys alive as it pulsated through the crowd.
But what’s behind the men on stage? The answer is of course their stage manager Lesley Walker.
Walker is sitting with us. She jokes that she’s an old grandmother the boys simply want be rid of; the affectionate way they talk to her lets me know this is immediately not true.
Getting into getting undressed
Walker’s smile is sly as she proclaims: “I can spot a stripper half a mile away.”
All the guys laugh because, evidently, she spotted them.
Both Bruno, a professional dancer from Algeria, and Erwin, a long-time stripping veteran, tell me laughingly that they were both first approached about stripping at the gym.
Erwin, who I’ve just seen strut his stuff in his birthday attire, confesses that he worried he wouldn’t be confident enough: “It takes a lot of effort and courage to get up on stage when everyone’s looking at you… but I’ve always loved the girls around me.”
So, he decided to give it a go and has been “loving it” ever since.
Before our interview, he was engaged in cleavage signing whilst attendees requested their photos be taken with him.
Tyrese, on the other hand, discusses how stripping is a bit of a family affair.
His eyes are bright as he recounts how he’d “just gone to watch” his cousin’s stripping act, but then was suddenly dragged on stage as the “newest member” of the group.
Before this night he’d tried butlering (which is where men wear nothing but an apron and wait hand and foot on hen dos), but according to Walker that didn’t work as he “hung too low below the apron so he had no option but to strip”.
For David, from Ecuador, it was his salsa dancing skills that had a friend recommend him for the job.
On what makes a good stripper Walker is clear that it’s an “accumulation of good looks, nice personality and obviously the physique. If you find guys that have got all that and then you put them all together then you’ve got a team”.
To me, it is clear that Walker has exactly that: a team.
Teamwork makes the Dreamboys work
The camaraderie between the men is undeniable.
Bruno is sincere, looking around at the men he calls his brothers, as he says, “I learn with my brothers, I take their feedback because they know a lot and have lots of experience.”
Erwin backs this sentiment as he confesses, “I like group routines when we’re together on the stage. I just feel better, you know, like having the guys around me.”
The intimate setting of Fubar lends itself well Tyrese explains as, “Let’s just say if you’ve got like 500 people and they’re dry, shows terrible. If you’ve got fifteen people and they’re mental, show’s amazing. Feeding off the crowd, it’s the best feeling.”
Erwin’s face breaks out into a grin as he adds, “We put on a better show as well.”
Explaining what makes it work, Walker says, “We all talk with one another and we make sure work things out between us.”
The state of the male stripping industry
Tyrese motions with his hands as he breaks down the intricacies of stripping: “You get male strippers and then you get guys who strip. There’s a big difference.”
Walker nods her head in subtle agreement.
She explains: “We had a guy come up to let us see what he was like. He was sent by one of the top guys in the industry.”
“He was about fifty-five, looked like he was nine months pregnant and he set himself on fire.”
Walker is about to leave the story there but Tyrese (who is not afraid of details) elaborates that, “He put some wax on his dick and set it alight.”
Choked laughter escapes the group as the details of the story are exposed, but it’s not long before they are all business as they explain the issues in the stripping industry.
Erwin tells me, “You can’t find the guys that you can rely on. Most guys think becoming a stripper is cool. They do not put any effort into it. They think they will be fine, they’ll get drunk and there will be girls. It’s not like that. It’s hard work.“
Hard work it is indeed and once again Tyrese does not hold back on the details:
“Everybody eats like hell over Christmas, right? Puddings, everything, right? But we know by the end of January, we’re back on the circuit. So that means when January comes in, we’ve got like three weeks… It’s like an incentive that helps you to live healthy and stay in shape.”
There are sounds of general agreement at this.
Discussing social media, Tyrese says, “It’s a dying trade. I think that with the advent of social media people want the feeling of doing it without actually doing it… people live in this virtual social media metaverse that doesn’t exist, so you get these online dudes who do shit online, but they’re terrified to do it in person, which I find quite strange.”
His smile is wide and confident as he goes on to say, “So that’s one of the reasons you’d come and see us. I think we’re like, the last bastion of the industry.”
Strange occurrences
When I ask an audience member how she feels about the night she tells me it was “ridiculously hot” with her favourite moment being when she was “lifted onto someone’s face”.
Clearly the Dreamboys know what they’re doing, but what does it look like when things go awry?
Tyrese explains that there are different kinds of grams (surprise stripping acts) you can order for your nearest and dearest.
A gorilla gram, of course, involves a gorilla outfit.
He explains how he showed up to a job where “I didn’t realize that they booked a gorilla gram because this woman has like a morbid fear of apes. I thought I killed her.
“You know, normally when you do the gorilla gram, you go crazy. I spent half the time trying to make sure she knows I am a person.”
Erwin begins to list the various ways things can and have gone wrong.
“You get jealous boyfriends… so that’s almost broke into a fight a couple of times.
“You have girls that hate strippers. But their friends are booking the stripper for them, knowing they hate it. So when one of us turns up and she sees us, you can imagine the reaction.”
Getting more into specifics he recalls a job where he “drove about two hours to get there. It was a hen party… When I finished and got dressed, the girl was sitting in the kitchen crying.”
“I don’t know what happened but then they didn’t let me outside until the boyfriend drove all the way up there to take her home. Big, big drama, so these things happen.”
Fubar and the Dreamboys
On the night Fubar manager, Dave Thompson, said it was a success and that the venue is excited to see the boys return on February 24.
Fubar is only one stop for the boys who perform weekly in Edinburgh as well as a further 500 shows nationwide in theatres, arenas, and nightclubs.
Featured Image Credit: Carlin Braun